Installing different versions of R simultaneously on Linux
Prof Brian Ripley wrote:
This is really an R-devel question. On Fri, 27 Feb 2009, Rainer M Krug wrote:
Hi I want to install some versions of R simultaneously from source on a computer (running Linux). Some programs have an option to specify a suffix for the executable (eg R would become R-2.7.2 when the suffix is specified as "-2.7.2"). I did not find this option for R - did I overlook it? If it is not, how is it possible to have several versions of R on one computer, or is the only way to compile them and then call R in the directory of the version where it was compiled (~/R-2.7.2/bin/R)? If this is the case, would it be possible to add this o[ptiuon to specify the suffix for the executables?
'R' is not an executable, but a shell script.
depending on what is meant by 'executable'. "Files that contain instructions for an interpreter <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpreter_%28computing%29> or virtual machine <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_machine> may be considered executables" [1] "The term might also be, but generally isn't, applied to scripts <http://foldoc.org/index.cgi?scripts> which are interpreted by a command line interpreter <http://foldoc.org/index.cgi?command+line+interpreter>." [2] try also file `which R` which is likely, system-dependently, to say that it's *executable* (independently of the access mode). vQ [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executable [2] http://foldoc.org/index.cgi?query=executable&action=Search vQ